In Art. 3, para. 5, the Treaty on European Union (TEU) lays down the objectives of the Union in relations with the wider world, which are further explained in detail in Art. 21. In the first place, para. 5 refers to the promotion of the Union’s values. The list of values can be found in Art. 2 TEU (“The Union is founded on…”), which lists the principle of democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights, human dignity, freedom and equality. They are to be upheld and promoted by the Union in the wider world. Thus, they are directly linked to external policy. Next, the list of values in Art. 2 is repeated in Art. 3, para. 5 as objectives of the Union’s external policy and in Art. 21, para. 1 as principles. This paper provides a propaedeutic analysis of those external actions of the EU which have as their main aim to promote values internationally. The main objectives of the paper are twofold: firstly, to explain the notion of values and to assess its importance within the EU’s external actions, and, secondly, to investigate how the Union promotes values in international contexts. To sum up, it must be noted that the Union uses different types of instruments in order to promote values in the wider world. The Union engages in promoting its values through financial and technical instruments, trade preferences, international agreements, and, finally, non-binding
international instruments.